4 Blood Moons On Jewish Holy Days: A Sign for Israel or Christians?

"I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Joel 2:30-31

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs, to mark seasons and days and years…” Genesis 1:14 (NIV)

Having a real aversion to doomsday predictions, I’ve never paid any attention to people claiming to know when the end is near–and I still don’t.

Frankly, or maybe shamefully, I’ve never explored the book of Revelation much either. As a mother of nine natural born children, I filed it under the same category as giving birth: nobody gets to sleep through it–you’ll know when it happens.

However, as a Christian who believes in the God of Israel, it’s becoming glaringly obvious we need to understand how the Creator of the universe records timenin the heavens. The “expanse of the sky” is a mathematical clock by which all creation keeps time.

In 2008 Mark Biltz saw an image circulating on the Internet of a blood-moon over the Dome of the Rock. It struck him. As a pastor, his first thoughts went to scripture that describes the moon turning to blood.

Joel 2:30-31:

“I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

So he did what any man of faith would do–checked NASA’s website. What he discovered has Christians around the world checking their calendar–and looking over Jewish shoulders at theirs’.

OK, I'm Jewish, I have a degree in Physics, and I used to teach celestial navigation for the US Navy. So I know more than a little about astronomy.

The Jewish calendar is a LUNAR calendar; well, more exactly a "luni-solar" calendar. The first day of each month is the day of the new moon. Or, is supposed to be; the date of Rosh Hashanna is sometimes bumped a day so that Yom Kippur doesn't occur on a Friday or a Sunday.

The dates that you mention - Passover and Sukkot - occur on the 15th of the month; 15 Nissan for Passover, and 15 Tishrei for Sukkot. So these dates are invariably the dates of the full moons; and it's basic astronomy to know that lunar eclipses always happen when the Moon is _precisely _ full.

Further, solar and lunar eclipses only occur when the Moon passes through the "ecliptic", the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Those are the only times when the Sun, Earth and Moon can line up precisely enough to cause an eclipse.

So what am I saying? I'm suggesting that you are making entirely too much of a not-all-that-uncommon coincidence.

But looking at the NASA Eclipse Web Site at http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html, I do see something incredibly amazing; NONE of those four total lunar eclipses will be visible from Israel! For the last one, September 28, 2015, the Moon will set while the eclipse is beginning, but it will set before the eclipse becomes total.

So, WHY does the Moon become red during an eclipse? Shouldn't it get, like, DARK??? No, because the Earth has an atmosphere, which refracts sunlight around the curve of the Earth, and the red rays of the Sun are refracted more than the bluer wavelengths. That's why the sky looks red at sunrise and sunset; the Sun has already set, but the red light is bent around the Earth, and then passes out into space.

So the red coloration of a total lunar eclipse is all the sunrises and sunsets, all around the world at once, bending the light JUST ENOUGH to cause it to shine onto the eclipsed Moon.

People still have not learned from the crap we all heard before. The Jupiter Effect, the Bible Code, the Quatrains of Nostradamus, Y2K and the December 21st 2012 end of the world crap. It’s all witchcraft and nothing is going to happen the next few years. We are not anywhere near the second coming so forget it. The second coming is about 225 years in the future. Satan is having a field day with us. This 4 blood moons is just more crap coming from Satan. It’s witchcraft and the bible warns us about this kind of stuff.

It doesn't seem likely that we're coming to the end times soon. St Paul wrote that the Jewish people would first have to come into the church and there are no signs of that. I do think it is possible that 2014 could mean a major shift in world history. At the turn of the 20th century most people thought it would be greatest time in history because of all the discoveries in science and all the inventions. Pope Leo the XIII disagreed. In 1886 Pope Leo XIII had a vision that Satan would be take control of world events for 100 years. When did the 100years begin? In 1886? In 1900? He wasn't sure. It stands to reason that it began in 1914 with WWI which led to WWII and all the other horrific wars and disasters which have plagued mankind. If this is true than 2014 will end Satan's control and the world will be a much better place.

OK, I'm Jewish, I have a degree in Physics, and I used to teach celestial navigation for the US Navy. So I know more than a little about astronomy.

The Jewish calendar is a LUNAR calendar; well, more exactly a "luni-solar" calendar. The first day of each month is the day of the new moon. Or, is supposed to be; the date of Rosh Hashanna is sometimes bumped a day so that Yom Kippur doesn't occur on a Friday or a Sunday.

The dates that you mention - Passover and Sukkot - occur on the 15th of the month; 15 Nissan for Passover, and 15 Tishrei for Sukkot. So these dates are invariably the dates of the full moons; and it's basic astronomy to know that lunar eclipses always happen when the Moon is _precisely _ full.

Further, solar and lunar eclipses only occur when the Moon passes through the "ecliptic", the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Those are the only times when the Sun, Earth and Moon can line up precisely enough to cause an eclipse.

So what am I saying? I'm suggesting that you are making entirely too much of a not-all-that-uncommon coincidence.

But looking at the NASA Eclipse Web Site at http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html, I do see something incredibly amazing; NONE of those four total lunar eclipses will be visible from Israel! For the last one, September 28, 2015, the Moon will set while the eclipse is beginning, but it will set before the eclipse becomes total.

So, WHY does the Moon become red during an eclipse? Shouldn't it get, like, DARK??? No, because the Earth has an atmosphere, which refracts sunlight around the curve of the Earth, and the red rays of the Sun are refracted more than the bluer wavelengths. That's why the sky looks red at sunrise and sunset; the Sun has already set, but the red light is bent around the Earth, and then passes out into space.

So the red coloration of a total lunar eclipse is all the sunrises and sunsets, all around the world at once, bending the light JUST ENOUGH to cause it to shine onto the eclipsed Moon.

Four successive total lunar eclipses isn't particularly uncommon. Not "common", certainly; we'd normally expect to see a couple of total lunar eclipses with a couple of partial or penumbral eclipses around them, but we're coming off a series of partial and penumbral eclipses, so we're due for some nice total eclipses. And since Passover and Sukkot are exactly six months apart (six Hebrew-calendar months...) then if we're going to have a total eclipse on one Passover, another on Sukkot - and yes, even on the next Passover - isn't especially rare.

Do I believe that God might place signs in the heavens? Certainly it's POSSIBLE, but if "free will" is to mean anything at all, then something as mathematically certain as a series of eclipses cannot qualify. Even the druids of Stonehenge were able to predict eclipses; with our understanding of the basic mechanics of astronomy, we're able to predict eclipses with split-second accuracy a thousand years into the future or four thousand years into the past. The NASA eclipse web site has a 5,000 year catalog of eclipses from 2,000 BCE to 3,000 AD, and the only reason that they haven't projected it further out is because there's no particular reason to do so.

If God truly wanted to place a sign in the heavens, Betelgeuse would do nicely. Betelgeuse, the red giant star in the shoulder of Orion the Hunter, is an aging star, and will go supernova "soon"; of course, "soon" to an astronomer means "sometime within the next 10,000 years or so". It COULD happen tonight, but I wouldn't wait up for it. When it does, it will be nearly as bright as the full Moon; THAT would be a portent worthy of God. (And He would only need to have foreseen it by 550 years or so, that being the time it will take for the light of Betelgeuse's explosion to reach us.)

One more point; if you're looking for a REALLY RARE event in the Hebrew calendar, this is your year! Because the Jewish calendar is lunar, the holidays move back and forth in the Gregorian calendar. As I said, the Hebrew calendar is "luni-solar"; to keep the Hebrew calendar more-or-less aligned with the seasons, we toss in a "leap month" every few years. In years without a leap-month, the dates of holidays in the civil calendar creep earlier each year; in the years WITH a leap-month, the holidays are bumped back by 28 days.

This year will have a "leap month" added; normally there's the month Adar in the early spring, but this year we'll have "Adar I" in February 2014, and "Adar II" in March 2014.

The first day of Chanuka is 25 Kislev; this year it comes as early as it ever can, and this year it just so happens that the First Night of Chanuka coincides with the fourth Thursday in November, which is abnormally LATE this year. So the first night of Chanuka also happens - a once in a lifetime occurrence! - on Thanksgiving Day in the USA.

Given that the United States of America is only 224 years old, and that nations and empires rarely survive more than 500 years or so, Chanukah won't overlap "Thanksgiving in the United States" ever again. Unless Congress re-defines Thanksgiving, which is entirely possible.

I have nothing but respect for Pastor Hagee and consider him a staunch friend of the Jewish people, but please. Doesn't it say in your scriptures that even the Son himself doesn't know when the End will come?

And no insult to Pastor Blitz, but I took a quick look over at aish.com (your source for quick Jewish mysticism!) and according to them, solar eclipses are a sign that the world has taken insufficient notice of the passing away of great rabbis. Make of that what you will, but it's not quite the same as "a warning to the gentile nations," is it?

Yes. It does say no one knows. Neither one is saying that. They are saying that a tetrad is rare. And the last three times there was a major geopolitical shift. It was my impression they believe it will be in Israel's favor. But they admit they have no idea.

They are just pointing out facts they believe is too rare to be coincidence--they aren't adding to it as far as i can tell.

It means nothing at all, because the Jewish calendar is lunar. and the first day of both Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot (Tabernacles) always falls on the full moon, and never on any other day of the lunar cycle. This 'blood moon' is observed at the time of the full moon. Ergo, there is a causation here that has nothing at all to do with Biblical prophecies and supernatural causes, but simply with the fact that two full moons our of approximately 12 every year will invariably fall on these Jewish holidays. I'm actually shocked that PJ Media, which usually distinguishes itself by its intelligence, should have agreed to publish this article.

Charlie, do explain your embarrassment. I would not be embarrassed by the publication of this article anymore than I am embarrassed by the publication of articles by Foreign Policy that the Russians stopped the Japanese and that the A-bomb was ordered dropped by Roosevelt not Truman.

Well, in this case, it's the theological inference about what is just a plain old lunar eclipse, occurring on a date that invariably happens on the full moon. As Ken Mitchell notes above, it happens periodically and has since the date was defined. And hell, it happened as recently as 1949 and 1960; it's just not that unusual.

Add to that last weeks astrology column on there being some special meaning to a conjunction of Jupiter that, frankly, nobody anywhere literate thought much about -- the Romans didn't notice it, the Chinese didn't pay any attention -- and the lengthy assertion that a "biblical" diet was particularly good because kosher dietary laws were inherently healthy, for which there's no evidence, and the assertion that the Jews were somehow immune to the Plague, for which there's also no evidence but which was used as a justification for antisemitic massacres for 300 years, and yeah, I find it embarrassing.

If the "Jews were immune to the Plague" statement has ANY validity at all, I'd suggest that it might be because Jewish culture places a higher emphasis on physical hygiene than other "Dark Ages" cultures did. Plague, cholera, dysentery and typhus being primarily diseases that we might associate with filth, as it were.

Yes. Thank you Ken. That's what the author I quoted was inferring. The lack of sickness, provoked suspicion-- rather than understanding that they had higher hygiene practices, they blamed the Jews and another out break of persecution came because of it.

Charlie, I have to pretty much agree with Prof. lw. I really do greatly respect your intellect and have found some of your columns on Bhuddism to be, well, enlightening if you will, especially the column about clinging. It made me do some thinking, however, because in life there is very often a "however", I do find your hostility towards Judism and Christianity a little puzzling and disturbing. Especially since a few weeks ago you made the unbelievable comment that you thought Islam couldn't be all that bad because you know a few Muslims who are really nice people; this inspite of the near total destruction Islam is wreaking whereverit gain a foothold. That makes no more sense than saying that because I know a couple of Buddhistas who are jerks that buddhism must be bad.

What does all this stuff in the sky mean? I don't know but it probably means that the laws of nature are functioning as they are supposed to. But then who knows....?

Well, there's some history about that -- like many of the differently religioned (as a Buddhist, and with a Jewish mother) I've had a good bit of harassment because of it by Christians. Fired from jobs, removed as cadet commander of my Civil Air Patrol squadron, and a dozen other things.

But this isn't hostility to Christianity. This is hostility to illogic and scientific illiteracy.

Charlie, o.k., your are a Buddhaist and beyond suffering. But why must you be insufferable. Get a kick of tearing into other religions? I failed to involve you in an intellectual discussion about illogical arguments you used whereby you apodictically asserted effectively: being = change(??sic??). I suppose you ARE still with that unchangable thesis. I am not being coy, funny or picking an argument at the moment. In your case I find that you are like the physician who should cure (intellectually) himself. It is more pertentent that you defend your assertions. But not here! I do not understand your hunting about to make critical putdowns of other religions. Maybe I am reading you wrong, but that is the impression made.

And what assertion would you like me to defend? That this is not particularly unusual? It's a lunar eclipse. It's been gussied up with some poetic language ("blood moons"), but it's a lunar eclipse. They happen regularly. Hell, even if you just look at her examples, lunar eclipses on the High Holy Days happen every dozen years or so.

What does this comment mean? The things observed are not real? Are not worth discussion? I don't pretend to understand it, but if these notions are objective facts they are worth trying to place in context.